Marvin Swash is mad about sex. ‘He’s got it on the brain,’ confides his mum, Mary. ‘I don’t imagine he thinks about much else.’

Now, hormonal males aren’t always the easiest of charges. Yet Mary seems thrilled about Marvin’s voracious sexual appetite. For a fascination about the birds and bees is something of a prerequisite in his line of work. Marvin is Britain’s top stud dog, and has been crowned so for two years running.

An Airedale terrier and show dog with a host of trophies to his name, his puppies cost up to £1,000 each — which is why Airedale females (or more pertinently, their owners) are queuing up to meet him.

Marvin’s rough golden-brown fur, long, majestic features and wise brown eyes make him look more like a cuddly teddy than a sex machine, but he’s been breeding for six years — and has more than 100 puppies across the globe to prove it. As Mary Swash puts it: ‘Marvin doesn’t travel. He doesn’t need to.’

The top stud dog in Britain: Marvin's rough golden-brown fur, long, majestic features and wise brown eyes make him look more like a cuddly teddy than a sex machine, but he's been breeding for six years

The bitches’ owners happily shell out
£800-a-time for the privilege. But who can blame them? The puppies are
impossibly cute, with those same soulful eyes and fluffy fur, as Mary
demonstrates, leafing through a photo album.

When Marvin isn’t ‘performing’, he spends his time in languid comfort, being groomed, fed and walked at Mary’s three-acre farm in Hampshire. Some walks are conducted on the marvellously named ‘Jog A Dog’ treadmill. ‘We don’t use it very often,’ says Mary. ‘But if it’s tipping it down outside, it’s sometimes easier.’

Mary, a genial 78-year-old, has dedicated much of her life to raising Airedales and is one of Britain’s best-known breeders. She currently presides over ten — including Marvin — housed in pristine kennels behind her family home.

Much of the rest of her land is given over to long grassy runs, enclosed by wooden fences, in which the excitable terriers can let off steam.

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Orphaned by the age of five (her father died in an electrical accident, her mother of ovarian cancer), Mary was raised by a family friend in West London, where she went to sleep every night under a framed picture of a wire-fox terrier. ‘I don’t know why it was there but I just fell in love with it,’ she recalls.

So much so that her first job after leaving school was as a kennel maid. Three years later she began working for a professional dog handler, who introduced her to her first Airedale. ‘He was called Ernie and that was it really,’ recalls Mary. ‘I adored him.’

A dog's life: Marvin lives with his owner Mary on her three-acre Hampshire farm

By the early Eighties, Mary was married to husband Alan, now 84 and a former buildings manager. They have a son, John, 51, who is a partner in the kennels.

Mary says: ‘I like the Airedales’ looks and temperament. They are enormously loving but independent. If you want a boring dog, don’t get an Airedale. If you don’t, prepare for them to get into your heart. They’re very special.’

Of course, Marvin is the most special of all — he was crowned top stud dog by World Dog Magazine, which is the go-to source for breeders.

Even at the relatively advanced age of eight, he continues to win awards. He was named best veteran at this year’s Crufts, where he competed under his competition name ‘Jokyl Captain Scarlet’.

However, these awards are hard work. I arrive to find Marvin on the grooming table, submitting to his daily ablutions — a complex affair involving coat-conditioning spray, deodorising spray and an array of clippers, scissors and brushes.

‘He likes all the fuss, although sometimes he gets a little bored,’ Mary confides. She keeps him in place via a collar connected to the ceiling by a chain — necessary, Mary says, for when he tries to wriggle off the table.

Marvin is descended from a line of champions going back decades, including the wonderfully named Jokyl Gallipants — Crufts’ top dog in all breeds in 1983. Marvin’s father was an American showdog called Captain Greenfield Fantastic — known as Cappy. ‘He had a lot of charisma,’ says Mary. ‘And Marvin’s got that from him. But Marvin’s also a gentle sort, very patient. He’s not cocky but has a good opinion of himself.

‘He knows he’s special. He likes to be first out and first back in when we let the dogs out. If you leave another dog’s kennel open, he’ll nip in and quickly steal something. He has a kind of swagger while being very loving. It’s a nice combination.’

For all his lineage, Mary acknowledges that you can never know if a dog is stud material until it starts producing litters at around the age of two. ‘The proof is in the pudding,’ she says.

Marvin’s litters are not only of good quality but prolific — the average Airedale litter is eight, while his is 12.

Competitive world: Marvin has excelled at shows like Crufts (pictured) which attract the very best of canines

However, he won’t hook up with just anyone. Prospective mates must have what Mary terms ‘the right credentials’, which mostly come down to a substantial pedigree, clean bill of health and nice demeanour.

Good hips are vital too, as Airedales are prone to dodgy ones. So the bitches are X-rayed and the results sent the British Veterinary Association for analysis.

Those who pass muster include dogs who’ve travelled from Holland and Norway. Mary has twice sent Marvin’s sperm through the post, although she’s less keen on this arrangement. ‘It’s quite a lot of fuss and expensive, as you have to have it extracted at the vet and then sort out carriage,’ she explains. ‘Obviously, the other people are paying, and I don’t rule it out if the circumstances demand it.’

It’s not as if the mating ritual itself is romantic: Marvin and his lady friend are placed in his grooming room (‘we move the tables back to give them a bit of space’) and left to get on with it, albeit under Mary’s supervising gaze in case they ‘tie’ — in other words, get stuck and need detangling.

Adorable: One of Marvin's £1,000 puppies

Marvin has never refused a bitch, although the ladies sometimes need a little more encouragement. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes, then Marvin trots back into his kennel.

Mary says: ‘You could probably go on the internet and find someone offering breeding for £400, but you pay for quality don’t you? I’m an assured breeder — we do it properly — and you know the bloodline.’

Then there’s the immense hard work that goes into a rearing a litter. ‘If you want to do it properly, it’s really tough work just to get them to eight weeks, which is the time you would give them away.’

And there are the shows to gain those all-important certificates, which take up many days a year and cost thousands of pounds.

It all sounds rather gruelling, certainly for someone not far off her 80s. But Mary is at her kennels at 7.30am each day until well after 5pm for non-stop round of grooming, trimming, feeding and walking. At 9pm, the dogs have to be let out again for a final run around the paddock.

What does her long-suffering husband make of it all? Although he is relatively detached from the day-to-day business of looking after the dogs, he knows his place in the pecking order, confiding that Mary would ‘sooner be rid of me than the dogs’.

But Mary accepts the need for compromise: she wants a couple of dogs in the house but Alan’s put his foot down. ‘Given I spend all day in the kennels, he wants to have a bit of me to himself,’ she says.

Among her ten-strong crew are four of Marvin’s offspring: Hattie, Bonnie, Star and Boris — all award-winners.

Boris is an adorable seven-month-old bundle of energy, named after Boris Johnson because of the blonde tufts he sported on his face at birth. Under his competition name of Jokyl The Party Line, he garlanded best puppy at the Southern Counties Championship this year.

Mary has high hopes for him as heir to his father’s stud-dog title. But that’s not to say there isn’t life in the old dog yet. Marvin’s show career may be winding down, but Mary believes he has a couple more years left as a stud — Airedales can still be fertile at 11.

She even had his sperm tested earlier this year. ‘It was very good and very strong,’ she boasts. ‘Good food, good exercise and lots of TLC, that’s the secret’, she says, ruffling an appreciative Marvin’s head.